WRONG!

Give Rebuilding Lower Priority in Future Wars

This is asinine thinking that only entrenched warped-brain idiots can develop... The key to winning the hearts and minds of people is providing them with the resources that are necessary to restore order to their world. The problem we see in the case of Iraq is that there is not the leadership, accountability and direction that we once had with the Marshall Plan. In Iraq we have placed the priority on giving no-bid contracts, having outsiders determine which projects need to be done first, and hiring outsiders to do the work. If we restored water, utilities, public health resources, and facilitated living wage jobs, we could have been a lot further in Iraq.

It was bad management, poor planning, and poor community organizing... otherwise known a poor leadership... Let's all give the Bush gang a standing O.

As factions in the Bush administration continue their bitter infighting over the reconstruction program in Iraq, the State Department has produced a draft planning document saying that after any future conflicts, the United States should not immediately begin a major rebuilding program.

Instead, it says, the first priorities should be to establish a secure, stable environment and begin political reconciliation. Otherwise, officials said, Washington and any local government that is formed are likely to suffer major political repercussions by making promises that cannot be kept.

In Iraq, "We set it up to fail," said Andrew S. Natsios, who was director of the United States Agency for International Development until January. He and some White House and State Department officials say they argued early on that a large-scale reconstruction program could never succeed in a hostile environment.

"We certainly have not done as much as we originally had hoped for," acknowledged James Jeffrey, who is the State Department's senior coordinator for Iraq. Some senior officials say they fear that the failures of the reconstruction program will pose a serious threat for officials of the new Iraqi government, once it is formed. "They will be vulnerable to complaints and hostility for their inability to provide electricity or clean water," one senior official said.

Carlos Pascual, who until recently headed the Office for Reconstruction and Stabilization at the State Department, which prepared the draft plan, said this problem "was in part self-generated — we came in and said we would restore the country, make it whole."

Under the new plan, the United States would first establish public security and order, and then encourage small-scale economic activity while promoting political reconciliation. "If that is not done, then the society will unravel at some point," Mr. Pascual said.